


Passion of Shadows

by voleuse



Category: Angel: the Series, Firefly
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-14
Updated: 2005-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Whatever I meant to say loses itself</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passion of Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-_Firefly_, very post-_Angel_. Title and summary adapted from Lynda Hull's _Black Mare_.

Inara isn't sure what she expected when she first applied to the Guild.

Music, and dance, and elocution, yes. Poetry and, of course, the ways of pleasuring both men and women.

Training in weapons was a surprise, as were the more personal methods of attack. Her instructors teach death like a dance, and she finds the beauty in that, too.

Even more practically, there are lectures in politics and history. Flight simulations for various types of shuttles, and the basics of engineering.

She learns the intricacies of flattery and flirtation, of command and uncommon courtesy.

She drinks it all in like wine, and finds she loves each moment.

Then one morning, the house priestess pulls her aside. Tells her there's an instructor she has yet to meet.

"Another?" Inara frowns, careful not to let her brow furrow overmuch. "I hadn't known."

"Her name is Nina." The priestess presses a slip of paper into her hand. "She expects you this evening."

Inara clutches the paper in delicate fingers, and bows her head to agree.

*

 

Across the gardens, up a stairway, and through a wrought iron gate, and still no sign of Nina.

Inara lifts the hem of her skirt above her feet and feels moist grass slip between the laces of her sandals.

She pauses to appreciate the metalwork of the gate, the peaks of its design crowned with semi-precious stones.

"Amber for protection."

The voice startles Inara, and she turns her head sharply.

"Garnet for healing." A woman rises from beside a reflecting pool, previously hidden by a marble statue beside it. "Tourmaline for strength."

Inara casts her eye to the gate again. "And peridot, to bring peace."

"Good," the woman says. She pulls the gold of her hair back, sets a lily behind her ear. "You must be Inara."

Inara smiles. "And you must be Nina."

"Yes." Nina bends, sweeps her hand to the reflecting pool, and rises with another lily in her hand.

Inara stills as Nina approaches, catches her breath when Nina twines the lily's stem into her hair.

Nina's hand is warm against Inara's face, and then she steps back.

"Come," Nina says. "We should start our lessons."

"In what?" Inara asks, because she's never been told. "What are you teaching me?"

Nina's laugh is low and sweet.

"Magic."

*

 

Inara repeats, cleverly and convincingly, there's no such thing as magic.

With each reiteration, Nina waves away Inara's logic.

"There used to be," she tells Inara. "In the soil of Earth-That-Was."

The scent of herbs is strong in Nina's bedroom, and Inara rubs soot from her fingertips.

"Earth-That-_Was_," she emphasizes.

Nina kisses her protests away.

*

 

The days pass, full of sun, and the nights, full of silk.

And slowly, slowly Inara begins to understand.

There is a soothing ritual to everything Nina does, a steady rhythm that weaves from her body and into the world around.

She sees the pattern Nina creates, and somehow, everything falls within its lines.

"Why do you call it magic?" she wonders aloud. "Why pretend it's something it's not?"

Nina crushes a pearl with her pestle, grinds it to a fine dust.

When she finishes, she scrapes it into a bowl, and Inara continues to wait.

Finally, Nina licks the back of her thumb, and the air smells like sage and honey.

"It used to be more," she tells Inara. "When I was young."

But she never specifies when that was.

*

 

One night, Inara reaches across the bed and finds only the cool mattress.

She wakes then, and rises from the bed, finds Nina standing by the open window, clothed only in the moonlight.

It's cool, and Inara shivers as she walks across the room.

"What is it?" she asks, pulling a blanket around her shoulders. "Are you all right?"

Nina shakes her head and shrugs. "The full moon," she murmurs.

Inara leans against her. "Like every month," she observes.

"Not like before," Nina says. "I-- It was different before."

"Before what?"

"Before the end." Nina smiles, barely. "Before the wolf broke her chains. Ate the moon, and the sun."

"I don't understand," Inara replies.

Nina turns from the window. "I know."

She brushes her lips against Inara's cheek, drags her teeth against her ear.

And in the light of the moon, they sink.


End file.
